A human being undergoing treatment with cytostatics (chemotherapy) or similar treatment often suffers from loss of hair. By maintaining, during the treatment, a low temperature on/at/of the hairy region, usually the scalp, such a loss can be eliminated or substantially reduced.
A head cooler disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,156,059 comprises a head cover to be placed over a human scalp for enclosing the patient's head and neck. Flow passages, through which a cooling fluid is flown, are provided in the cover which forms an inside heat exchange surface to be applied against the scalp for cooling the scalp. A temperature sensor is mounted in connection with each flow passage for registering the local temperature.
The size and shape of heads of different patients may vary a lot. If the head cooler is too large or too wide, a gap may be formed between the heat exchange surface and the head. Then, the cooling of the scalp may be jeopardized, since the heat exchange surface is not held in contact with the scalp over the entire surface thereof. As a consequence the cooling efficiency will be reduced in the area of the gap resulting in loss of hair.
It is proposed according to the Japanese Patent Abstract of Patent Application No. 6270060 to mount to the inside surface of the head cover a plurality of bag bodies to which a pressure fluid is supplied in order to press a heat exchange surface against the patient's head and neck for cooling the scalp.
A drawback with currently used head coolers is that the head cover is not easily adaptable to the size and/or shape of the patient's head and neck, which may result in a too low or an impaired cooling efficiency.
Another disadvantage is that the currently presented head coolers do not involve the cooling of the eyebrows or the region of the eyebrows. Loss of the eyebrows is also considered to be a problem for patients undergoing treatments with cytostatics.